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How Has Digital Marketing for Small Business Changed in 2015?

Digital marketing is evolving faster than ever. Technology grows more powerful each year, and consumer’s tastes are constantly changing. In an effort to get a grip on digital marketing, companies have resorted to spending a ton of their budget on it. In 2015, digital marketing expenditures are expected to account for one-third of all marketing budgets.
If you’re spending a significant amount of time and money trying to figure digital marketing out, you need to know what’s changing. Here are the three biggest digital marketing trends for small businesses in 2015:
Website Design is More Important Than Ever

Websites are no longer a luxury for small businesses, they’re a necessity. All the search engine optimization in the world is useless if your outdated website drives prospects away. To stay competitive, you need to make sure your website evolves, too. According to Jon Bowerman, with High Level Marketing, a company that specializes in helping small business owners with web design he identified the follow items for 2015.
Some shiny new website design tricks you should be using:

• Better backgrounds. Websites today can have incredible images, interactive videos, and much more as backgrounds. If you aren’t trying to leverage your background, it’s wasted space.
• Simplicity. Gone are the days of large logos, cluttered menus, and a ton of buttons. User’s today want to quickly find the information they’re looking for, and are apt to navigate away if they can’t find it.
• Performance (especially for mobile). With so many options available, websites have to load quickly and perform at all times, especially on mobile devices. Optimizing your design for mobile performance will give you an edge over your competition.

SEO is Evolving

SEO changes all the time, but there have been major changes over the year or two. Mobile optimization now counts a great deal towards SEO, and page load times are a big chunk of that. In fact, an estimated 70% of websites weren’t responsive enough on mobile. This means you have a major opportunity to grab some organic search traffic.
Another way content is changing is that it’s becoming more technical. Keyword stuffing is penalized, and content is a whole other beast. Technical issues like meta tags, proper keyword analysis, indexing, and even recovery from penalties are now vital to SEO success.
Finally, social media is becoming more and more important for SEO. There is significant correlation between social media strength and SEO strength, and many experts believe social media is the next natural step for Google’s SEO. Building your networks now should pay significant dividends in the very near future.

Content is King
Almost 80% of Chief Marketing Officers responded in a survey that content marketing is the future. Here’s how you can begin to master content marketing:
• Go beyond blogging by investing in infographics and videos, too.
• Provide value to your audience by creating content on relevant, important industry issues.
• Use metrics to track which content is successful. Use A/B testing whenever possible.
• Leverage your social media presence to get your content out there.